It’s been a relatively eventful month. I went on some hikes, took the GRE, and celebrated my birthday and Halloween. (Oh, and I taught everyday… I always forget about that aspect of my life when I write this blog!)
At the beginning of the month, I went with a few of the other volunteers up to the mountains of Pohnpei to a tiny village called Salapwuk. There, we took an epic all-day hike to see six different waterfalls. So just in case you haven’t believed me every time I’ve gushed about how beautiful Pohnpei is, here are MORE pictures to prove it!
For my birthday, I went with some of my host sisters/cousins/nieces/whatever to another waterfall – less epic, smaller, closer to home… but still really fun. We had a picnic with cookies and frosting!
At the waterfall, even though you can't see it in
the picture...
Frosting Face!
One of the highlights of school this month was reading “Rumpelstiltskin” with the 6th graders. They made puppets and put on puppet shows to review the story events. It was pretty funny. I took pictures, but the kids all got super shy the moment the camera came out…
Also this month, the 7th graders read about the Titanic. Like any country with a significant American pop-culture influence, everyone was familiar with the movie. And even more so than the movie, with the Celene Dion song. They LOVE that song. I’ve heard it more times than I can count since coming to Pohnpei. You know how it’s sort of become a joke in the United States? How everyone starts laughing the moment it starts playing? Not so here. Most of the 7th graders knew all the lyrics, despite their varying English abilities. We couldn’t get very far into the reading before all the students wanted to sing the Titanic song!
The state of Pohnpei recognizes a holiday called "Education Day," which we celebrate by… not having school. I was complaining to some of the other volunteers about how ridiculous this is, when one of them pointed out, "Well, what do Americans do on Labor Day?" Ah, touché. Anyway, all the teachers had a celebration in Kolonia – here’s a picture of some of us volunteers in our school uniforms:
The state of Pohnpei recognizes a holiday called "Education Day," which we celebrate by… not having school. I was complaining to some of the other volunteers about how ridiculous this is, when one of them pointed out, "Well, what do Americans do on Labor Day?" Ah, touché. Anyway, all the teachers had a celebration in Kolonia – here’s a picture of some of us volunteers in our school uniforms:
To finish off October, Halloween! My parents sent an awesome Halloween care package with face paint and LOTS of candy! Halloween is celebrated American-style in Kolonia, but is unrecognized out in the villages. So I introduced "trick-or-treating" to my family, which was a blast. I gave candy to all the homes on our compound and the kids (after practicing saying "trick or treat!!!" sufficiently) went around to get their candy! I got lots of good pictures!
Baby Lebron as a cat
Donn and Gayson looking scary!
Jenet as a butterfly
"Trick or treat!!"
We also played "Halloween Bingo" and made skeletons!
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